Durham’s May 6th Virtual Meeting – ScotlandsPeople + FamilySearch = Savings

Please join us on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 @7:30 pm as Ken McKinlay presents: 

ScotlandsPeople + FamilySearch = Savings (via Zoom)

Researching our kin in Scotland can get a little pricey if we want to view the images of the birth, marriage, and death statutory registrations and the census records. With a bit of time and knowledge we can make use of key collections on FamilySearch to save us a little bit of money.

Located in Ottawa, Ontario, Ken McKinlay is a genealogy researcher with over 20 years of trial and error experience in researching his own family's history in Canada, United States, England, Scotland and Ireland. 

Ken belongs to the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (AKA BIFHSGO) and the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Ancestors (AKA Ontario Genealogical Society). Ken has held many roles in both organizations and their respective conferences.

The talks he gives quite often deal with the methodologies for researching family history and also how to use technology to assist with doing the research. 

Ken’s blog is available at: https://familytreeknots.blogspot.com/

Everyone is welcome!

Please pre-register at the following Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/bb7w_b3JT-iTVAV4R3UQKQ

Introducing ... Our Workshop Speakers: Stephen Wood

Stephen Wood is a long-time genealogist, having been a member of the Ontario Genealogical Society for over 40 years. He is a founding member of the Durham Region Branch and has headed up the Research Committee for almost as long, as well as serving several terms as branch chair. Stephen has ancestral roots in Scotland, the Netherlands, England and also Quaker families from Pennsylvania. His own family research includes families in Perthshire and he will share his Scottish research expertise with us with his presentation on "Particulars & Peculiarities of Scottish Research"

For more information on our workshop, see http://durham.ogs.on.ca/workshops/index.htm

20 Free Credits at ScotlandsPeople

When I took advantage of the following offer, I found that it reactivated a bunch of dormant credits too!!

FOR generations the Scots, like no other nation, have travelled the globe.

This month, Scotland Now has teamed up with ScotlandsPeople to give you the chance to help you trace your Scottish ancestry for free.

A partnership between the National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon, it is the largest official online resource of original Scottish family history records.

With this great offer you will receive 20 free credits worth £4.50. It costs five credits to view an image, and one credit to view a page of search results so there will be plenty to search with this offer.

How to redeem the offer.

Register at www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk if you are a new user, or log in using your username and password if you already have an account.

• New users will be required to complete a registration form.

• Once logged in, click on Buy more credits on the top right hand side of the page.

• You will be taken to a page where you should enter the promotion code. The promotional code is: scotland. You will then be allocated 20 FREE credits worth £4.50

• It costs five credits to view an image, and one credit to view a page of search results.

• Your 20 FREE credits voucher must be redeemed by April 30, 2016. Your 20 FREE credits will then be valid for one year after you redeem the voucher.

For further help with redeeming a voucher code, please see the Voucher Help page.

Terms and conditions.

You must register at scotlandspeople.gov.uk in order to take up the offer and in so doing you agree to the terms and conditions of use for the ScotlandsPeople website. The free credit offer is restricted to one offer per individual. The offer codes must be validated at scotlandspeople.gov.uk before or on April 30, 2016. Your free credits will be added to your account, which will expire after one year or when they have been used up, whichever is the sooner. Credits are required to view the indexes and images on the website. The cost of viewing each different type of record can vary.

ScotlandsPeople Credits

With special thanks to both the Scottish Special Interest Group & the Quinte Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, whose e-mails pointed me to the following post at ScotlandNow:

SCOTLAND NOW, the website for Scots everywhere, has teamed up with ScotlandsPeople to give you the chance to help you trace your Scottish ancestry for free.

With this great offer you will receive 20 Free credits worth £4.50. It costs five credits to view an image, and one credit to view a page of search results so there will be plenty to search this offer.

With images of over 100 million indexed births, marriages, deaths, censuses, wills and other documents, including records of some of Scotland’s most famous figures such as Rob Roy, Robert Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson, www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk contains the most comprehensive official online set of family history information for any country in the world. As one of the largest single information resources online, ScotlandsPeople provides an easily accessible route to the unrivalled store of official Scottish records.

The ScotlandsPeople website is a partnership between the National Records of Scotland, a non-ministerial department of the Scottish Government, and the Lyon Office, enabled by Findmypast.

How to redeem the offer.

Register at www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk if you are new user, or log in using your username and password if you already have an account.

• New users will be required to complete a registration form.

• Once logged in, click on Buy more credits on the top right hand side of the page.

• You will be taken to a page where you should enter the promotion code. The promotional code is: scotlandnow. You will then be allocated 20 FREE credits worth £4.50

• It costs five credits to view an image, and one credit to view a page of search results.

• Your 20 FREE credits voucher must be redeemed by April 30, 2015. Your 20 FREE credits will then be valid for one year after you redeem the voucher.

For further help with redeeming a voucher code, please see the Voucher Help page.

Terms and conditions.

You must register at scotlandspeople.gov.uk in order to take up the offer and in so doing you agree to the terms and conditions of use for the ScotlandsPeople website. The free credit offer is restricted to one offer per individual. The offer codes must be validated at scotlandspeople.gov.uk before or on April 30, 2015. Your free credits will be added to your account, which will expire after one year or when they have been used up, whichever is the sooner. Credits are required to view the indexes and images on the website. The cost of viewing each different type of record can vary.

Index to Scottish Valuation Rolls Free on ScotlandsPeople

From ScotlandsPeople:

We're delighted to announce the Release of Valuation Rolls 1875! You can search the index for free until 31st December 2014.

see the link here

ScotlandsPeople to Restore Expired Credits

Did you have leftover credits on Scotlands People? And, did they expire before you were able to use them all up? Well, good news! See the announcement from Scotlands People below:

Reactivate your expired credits!
We are pleased to announce that for one week only, you can reactivate any expired ScotlandsPeople credits at no cost. The validity period at purchase is 365 days, so any credits purchased over a year ago can now be reactivated by entering the special promotional code spring2014. 

To reactivate your expired credits, please enter spring2014 into the 'voucher code' box on the Shopping Basket page. Pleaseclick here for a step-by-step guide to reactivating your expired credits. This promotional code will be valid up until midnight (BST) on 30/4/2014.